


Falling For You

by nightberrypearl



Series: Twohyun Week 2018 - @nightberrypearl [2]
Category: NU'EST
Genre: Alternate Universe - Skating, Fluff, Ice Skating, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-14 17:11:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16044917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightberrypearl/pseuds/nightberrypearl
Summary: Minhyun has spent most of his life on the ice. Skating was as natural to him as walking. But who was he to decline the offer of beginner’s skating lessons when the handsome instructor at his local public rink would be the one teaching him?For Twohyun Week 2018, Day 2: Competition





	Falling For You

**Author's Note:**

> I’m so glad I can finally release this into the wild. I started this fic at the beginning of June, before Twohyun week was even something we were working on. I left it for a bit because of exams and stuff but came back to it when we started thinking of themes for this week. Initially we had decided to do a sports themed day and so I picked this back up, which means I’ve had it finished since around mid-July and I’ve had to keep it locked up for all this time. 
> 
> It was only after I finished writing it that we changed the theme from “sports” to “competition” at the end of July, so strictly speaking this probably doesn’t fit the theme that well but whatever. Though I suppose there could be a very tentative link to the theme since a competition is mentioned in maybe one sentence of this story… 
> 
> But I had already been sitting on this for so long that I decided that I was just going to go ahead and post it today as I had planned. Anyway, I’m happy to be finally posting this, and even happier that I can do it as part of Twohyun week.

Sometimes Minhyun liked to head down to his local ice rink just to skate around, enjoy the atmosphere, and relax. Sometimes, it could be too suffocatingly quiet at the practise rink when he was the only one there, so he liked to drop by the public skate sessions on occasion.

On one particular day, he had been heading home from the gym when he decided that he just wanted to skate without feeling burdened to perform any fancy moves. So not even bothering to go home to grab his own skates, he headed straight to the rink, deciding to hire a pair of skates instead. After all, he didn’t need anything fancy if he was just planning to glide around in circles for a bit.

The familiar chill of the rink brought him subtle comfort. After skating for most of his life, he could barely feel the cold anymore.

He laced up his skates, allowing his muscle memory to take over so that he could observe his surroundings. He watched as a bunch of teens almost collapse on top of each other as they shuffled along the ice on shaky legs. Just ahead of them, he spied a young child, probably not much older than four years old, gliding along the ice, a private instructor skating just in front of them to guide them. He smiled nostalgically at the sight.

Minhyun himself had started skating when he was merely four years old. His parents had originally enrolled him in lessons because he had always wanted to go ice skating but his parents had been unable to go with him – with neither of them able to skate, they hadn’t wanted to risk injuring themselves or letting Minhyun himself get hurt.

At first, he had joined in the weekly group sessions, learning the basics – how to move, how to stop, and how to get up safely after falling over. (That last one was particularly useful knowledge for the first few months.)

After a while, he came to love skating more than anything. By the time he could skate confidently and independently, he knew that he didn’t just want to stop there.

Fast forward about 18 years to where he was now, aged 22 and considered a “rising star” in the professional figure skating community and a favourite for the gold medal at the next grand prix final, he was more than thankful that his parents had enrolled him in lessons all those years ago.

Having finished meticulously lacing up his skates, he stood and made his way towards the rink barrier. He didn’t hesitate to step onto the ice the moment he reached it. After 18 years of skating, the rink was practically his second home. Skating on ice was no different to him than walking on solid ground. He probably spent more time on the ice than in his own bed.

He huffed slightly as he felt himself slip a little against the ice; the hired skates clearly hadn’t had their blades sharpened in a while. He didn’t let it bother him too much though, he just had to be a bit more careful when pushing off to compensate for the lack of grip that came from blunt blades.

He spent a few minutes lazily gliding around the rink, letting himself zone out slightly and relax. But unfortunately, he had zoned out a bit too much and didn’t notice the herd of teens come barrelling towards him. One moment he had been happily ambling along near the side barrier and then the next moment, he found himself winded and lying flat on his back.

He groaned as he sat up, feeling a dull ache in his back from the impact. Though despite his slightly sore back, he was perfectly fine. A fact he was very thankful for – his coach would have murdered him if he had injured himself badly right before the start of the new season by being taken out by a bunch of kids while not paying attention.

“Hey, are you okay down there? I saw you getting knocked over and it looked like you fell pretty hard.”

Minhyun turned to his side and saw that a man had stopped beside him and was currently looking at him with concern.

“Uhh.” Minhyun said rather ineloquently. Suddenly his mind couldn’t gather any words in response which only made the man look even more concerned.

“Uhh… Did you hit your head? Are you okay?”

At Minhyun’s dazed expression, the man began waving a hand in front of his face to bring him out of his stupor.

“Oh! Um, yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.” Minhyun forced out before standing himself back up again.

The man helped him up with a steadying hand on Minhyun’s bicep but even that didn’t help when Minhyun turned to properly look at the man and felt his knees give in again, almost landing him back on the floor.

From his previous position on the ground, the bright lights of the rink had back-lit the man, effectively obscuring his face into the shadows. But now that he was stood face to face with the shorter man, he suddenly found himself not wanting the man to let go of his bicep. He found himself strangely drawn to the dark-haired man with kind eyes and features that seemed both soft and sharp at the same time.

“Woah, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Haha um, yes?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” The main quipped amusedly.

“Telling you?”

Minhyun’s unsure response merely made the other man raise his eyebrows as he giggled lightly, and if that wasn’t the best sound that Minhyun had ever heard, he’d be lying to himself.

“I think I’m just a little unbalanced on the ice…”

Minhyun didn’t know what made him say that. Maybe he just wanted to give himself an excuse for looking so pathetic, or maybe it was him looking for an excuse to talk to the adorable man before him for a bit longer.

“Oh really?” the man said a little surprised.

“Yeah, it’s, uh, my first time on the ice.” He might as well continue with the story now that he’d started down this path after all.

If anything, Minhyun’s statement made the man’s eyebrows raise even further. Was it that unusual for people his age to be skating for the first time?

“Well… I guess if that’s the case, I could teach you?” The man said uncertainly, “I mean, if you want?”

It was only then that Minhyun noticed that the other man was wearing a fleece with a patch embroidered with “Instructor” on it sewn on the sleeve.

“Yes!” Minhyun exclaimed perhaps too enthusiastically.

The man smiled up at him shyly, making Minhyun’s heart flutter.

“Okay, well, my name’s Jonghyun.” Jonghyun said, holding out his hand for Minhyun to shake.

“I’m Minhyun.” he replied as he shook Jonghyun’s hand.

“Right, well, so I suppose we should start with the basics if this is your first time.” Jonghyun suggested with a smile.

And then Jonghyun promptly began explaining to Minhyun how to glide on the ice, demonstrating how to position his feet when pushing off and advising him that, in order to keep his balance, he could hold out his arms to stabilise himself.

In all honestly, Minhyun didn’t pay so much attention to what Jonghyun was saying. He was sure that the other was doing a great job at teaching and explaining, but really this was all stuff that was as familiar to Minhyun as breathing was.

So instead of listening to Jonghyun, Minhyun took the opportunity to observe the other as he spoke. His eyes trailed from Jonghyun’s eyes that gleamed with fondness and excitement as he taught and talked about skating – Minhyun could tell that Jonghyun was passionate about the sport, he imagined that he himself probably looked the same when he talked about figure skating –, down to his soft looking lips that would pout minutely as he spoke. The more that Minhyun looked at Jonghyun, the more he realised that he couldn’t get enough.

“Minhyun?”

Jonghyun’s voice snapped Minhyun out of his admiring reverie.

“Uh… huh?”

Jonghyun looked over at him with slightly widened eyes and a smile tugging at his lips.

“I said, do you want to try just skating forwards to see how you do?” the shorter man repeated patiently.

“O-oh, sure!” Minhyun responded joyfully.

With his arms stretched out beside him, just as Jonghyun had taught and as he had been taught eighteen years ago, he put his feet together in a T-shape and pushed off to the side with his right foot to glide along the ice.

After a few pushes, Minhyun let himself glide to a natural stop before turning around to face Jonghyun.

“Very good! You’re very good considering you said this was your first time, I daresay you’re a natural at this.” Jonghyun remarked in good humour.

“Oh, really?” Minhyun pretended to be at least a little pleased at the compliment.

“Oh yeah, your gliding was very expertly done.”

The comment made Minhyun start slightly, but he tried to play off his sudden nervousness.

“Ahaha… thanks.” He tried to feign ignorance, but he wasn’t sure if he acted well enough.

Though given that Jonghyun then started to continue to teach him the snow-plough stop, he figured that he didn’t seem too suspicious.

 

* * *

 

The coaching session continued for roughly an hour before Jonghyun said that he had another student coming soon and so would have to leave Minhyun. In that one hour, Jonghyun had “taught” Minhyun how to skate, do a basic stop, and get up in the correct way after falling over. All the things that Minhyun had been taught to do on his actual first skating lesson all those years ago.

“You’ve managed to learn a lot well, I’m impressed.” Jonghyun said encouragingly.

“Ah well, what can I say, I’m a fast learner.” Minhyun responded with a hint of pride – although, he wasn’t quite sure why he felt pride, he hadn’t in fact learnt anything new. But Jonghyun’s slight praise managed to make him feel almost as happy as when he had qualified for the grand prix final in the last season.

“Though today we merely covered the basics, there’s a lot more that you could learn.” Jonghyun replied in jest.

“Would you teach me?” Minhyun asked, eyes widened in earnest.

Jonghyun looked almost shocked at the question.

“You want me to continue to teach you?” he asked with a hint of disbelief in his voice – a hint that Minhyun was not able to pick up on.

“Yeah, you’re a really good teacher, I think I’d really be able to learn a lot from you.” Minhyun assured him.

Minhyun watched as a faint blush rose up onto Jonghyun’s face making the shorter man only look more adorable than he already was.

“W-well if you say so…I guess we could schedule some more sessions…” Jonghyun replied shyly.

“Great! So, do I talk to the people at the front desk or…?”

“Uh, yeah, just tell them that you want to book some sessions with me and they’ll help you work out when I’m available and run you through the pricing and stuff…” Jonghyun trailed off a little awkwardly, “Well, if that’s everything, I guess I’ll see you later? I think my next student just arrived…”

“Oh okay, well I’ll go and book in those sessions then, see you soon Jonghyun!” Minhyun beamed at the skating instructor, and in his excitement, almost blew his cover by rushing towards the rink exit as fast as he could, but fortunately, he managed to stop himself in time and instead stuck close to the barrier and began to slowly push himself towards the exit with his arms outstretched for balance.

Once off the ice, he pulled off his skates as fast as he could and after shoving his shoes back on his feet, he nearly bolted towards the stairs to head up to the front desk.

The man at the front desk gave him a strange look when he requested to schedule some skating lessons with Jonghyun, though he didn’t think much of it – it was probably just unusual to see someone his age take up lessons. As he handed over his card to pay for another few sessions of lessons with Jonghyun, a small part of his mind reasoned rather logically that if he wanted to spend more time with the dark-haired man, he need not necessarily play pretend about his own skating abilities, but on the other hand, the larger part of his mind liked seeing Jonghyun bite back his laughter as Minhyun flailed around ridiculously on the ice (it was all part of the act you see but Jonghyun didn’t need to know that).

 

* * *

 

 

Minhyun continued to turn up to his weekly sessions with Jonghyun and they were quickly becoming the highlight of his week. According to Jonghyun, he was making very good “progress” with every session.

“So I noticed that you haven’t scheduled anymore sessions, are you stopping them?” Jonghyun asked suddenly on what would be their last session together.

It was a pity, yes, and a shame because Minhyun really did enjoy Jonghyun’s company. But the new skating season was about to start and Minhyun would have to start training once more and practise his new routines and so wouldn’t really have much time, or be much too tired, to continue his weekly sessions with Jonghyun.

It had been about six weeks since they met, six sessions ago, and Minhyun had yet pluck up the courage to ask for Jonghyun’s number, let alone ask to be able to meet with him off the ice, to meet with him not as instructor and student, but possibly as a date. Every time he considered asking (so basically every week), just as he called Jonghyun’s name, the way that the other man looked at him with his shimmering eyes and a soft smile on his face, the words got stuck in his throat and he ended up just asking some random question about whatever Jonghyun had been teaching him previously. Each time, he would miss the slightly disappointed look that flashed across Jonghyun’s face and the slight droop in the other’s shoulders as he answered Minhyun’s question.

“Uh, yeah,” Minhyun replied awkwardly, his hand coming up to scratch at the back of his head nervously, “It’s about to get a bit busy for me at work so I’ll probably be too tired to come over even if I had time…”

Jonghyun nodded in understanding.

“Ahhh, I see… well I guess we should make the most of our last session then.” He suggested with blinding smile on his face.

Minhyun directed an equally bright smile back at him, but with a heavy heart filled with the words that he couldn’t say.

 

* * *

 

Their session ended with the two of them perhaps lingering around each other for too long, saying their final farewells. He could have sworn that Jonghyun had words on the tip of his tongue ready to say to Minhyun but at the last minute, bit his tongue, opting instead for one last tight-lipped smile. It was perhaps the most strained smile that Minhyun had ever seen from the other man, but he supposed it was because Jonghyun felt a little bothered that Minhyun was stalling and taking up more of his time, eating into his next scheduled session but he was much too polite to say anything.

As Minhyun watched Jonghyun turn around to head over to where his next student was waiting patiently, he felt nothing but regret for being so cowardly.

 

* * *

 

The new skating season began soon after the last time he saw Jonghyun and he was finding himself spending all of his time either in the gym doing land training, or on the ice with his coach coming up with the choreography for his performances for the season.

“Are you sure you want this song Minhyun?” his coach, Aaron, asked him slightly concerned.

“Yes, I am, this is the song I want for my free skate.” Minhyun replied confidently.

Suddenly Aaron turned to him, eyes studying his face intently.

“It’s quite a… sad song, have you been feeling alright? You’ve been a bit off since we started training, almost like your mind has been elsewhere this whole time, it’s not like you.” His coach, and close friend, observed.

Minhyun supposed that Aaron was right, this whole time his mind had been split between his own practise and thoughts of a certain skating instructor who was only a few corridors away, at the public rink.

“Sorry, you’re right, my mind hasn’t been quite with it lately, some things have been on my mind, but don’t worry, I’ll get over it soon.”

Lies. He didn’t think he’d be able to so quickly “get over” Jonghyun as he was saying. Though he had only known Jonghyun for a number of weeks, and they had only spent a few hours together, he felt an indescribable attraction towards Jonghyun that he was desperate to explore further. But perhaps he had lost that chance already.

 

* * *

 

Days went by and Minhyun’s mindset hadn’t improved. Though at least he had made some progress on his free skate programme.

Just as he was coming out of a triple axel, he saw a figure standing rink side that definitely did not look like Aaron. He stumbled and almost fell flat on his face when he saw who it was.

“Jonghyun?” Minhyun exclaimed incredulously, his mind not quite believing what he was seeing.

He watched the shorter man bite back a laugh, his eyes gleaming with mirth as he watched Minhyun get increasingly more flustered.

“I don’t remember ever teaching you _that_ move, Mr. First-time-on-the-ice.” Jonghyun called over, his amusement seeping into his voice.

Minhyun could only splutter in surprise and embarrassment at being caught in his lie as he made his way over to Jonghyun.

“J-J-Jonghyun, I-I-I, um---” Minhyun continued to stammer out, not quite sure what he could say to make this situation any better.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t know who you are?” Jonghyun asked bemused, “I’m a skating coach, Minhyun, skating is my life and passion too, did you really think I wouldn’t recognise one of last year’s grand prix finalists?”

And all of a sudden, Minhyun felt very stupid. Very stupid indeed.

“I’m actually surprised that no-one else at the rink recognised you and approached you,” Jonghyun proceeded to muse, “Perhaps you need to work harder Hwang Minhyun.”

Jonghyun continued to laugh as he watched Minhyun continue to splutter and stutter, looking like a fish out of water.

“B-but then why didn’t you say anything? Why did you play along?” Minhyun finally managed to get out.

Now it was Jonghyun’s turn to look a little embarrassed as his cheeks began to turn pink, and not from the cold air of the rink.

“Well… I… Maybe I wanted to spend more time with you?” Jonghyun said hesitantly.

“Are you asking me or telling me?” Minhyun asked reminiscent of their first meeting, now a little giddy after hearing Jonghyun’s admission.

“Both.” Jonghyun stated firmly, “I’m telling you I want to spend more time with you, and I’m asking you if you would want to spend more time with me as well.”

The two of them began blushing furiously at Jonghyun’s sudden boldness, but Minhyun didn’t hesitate to reply.

“Yeah, I’d like to, a lot.”

Then Jonghyun laughed and Minhyun looked at him quizzically.

“Honestly, it was a bit of a silly question, I already knew the answer. I mean, why else would you waste your money to come and learn to do something you’re already an expert at from someone who’s nowhere near at your level?” Jonghyun teased.

“In my defence, you are a really good teacher.” Minhyun complimented.

“I’m not sure you’re the best person to judge that, you didn’t even learn anything from me. You just pretended to not know anything this whole time.” Jonghyun countered, “Though it was fun to watch you pretend to flounder around unbalanced.”

“Hey!” Minhyun protested indignantly.

“You’re lucky it was cute though.” Jonghyun offered shyly.

The compliment made Minhyun feel suddenly very warm and he resisted the urge to squeal.

“But so, about that date—” Minhyun began after clearing his throat.

“---Who said it was a date?” Jonghyun interrupted suddenly.

“I—But---You---” Minhyun spluttered confused.

“I was talking about you paying for more lessons, I’m a working man who has bills to pay, you know?” Jonghyun continued to joke at Minhyun’s expense.

“But nah, I’m kidding.” Jonghyun finally said after a while, “I’d love to go on a date with you.”

Minhyun smiled brightly at Jonghyun’s agreement to go on a date with him. They exchanged phone numbers and promises to contact each other later when they had more time to schedule something. It was a shame that shortly after, Jonghyun had a student to teach and Minhyun would have to go back to practise, but the both of them returned to their own respective responsibilities with renewed vigour and uncontrollable smiles tugging at their lips.

“Hey Aaron!” Minhyun called over to his coach after a while, “you were right. About the song, I mean.

“Oh okay, so are you planning to change it?” His coach asked.

“Yeah, it’s too sad. It needs to be happier.” Minhyun replied.

As thoughts and memories of Jonghyun’s bright smiles and light giggles filled the forefront of his mind, he tried to find a new song for his routine. A new song, a happier song. A song fitting for his new muse.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Be ready for tomorrow’s fic for sweet fantasy, it’s one I’m really excited about as well (even though it sucked out my soul during the writing process). 
> 
> For links to other 2hyun content for this week, we're trying out best to compile it in threads on twitter, in addition to the official Twohyun Week 2018 AO3 Collection.
> 
> Link to [@twohyunweek](https://twitter.com/twohyunweek)
> 
> Find me on twitter [@nightberrypearl](https://twitter.com/nightberrypearl) or my [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/nightberrypearl)


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